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A Street in Cassis may well have been included in a 1914 London exhibition, but was retained subsequently in the family until the thirties when it was acquired, along with another of a similar subject, by Stanley Cursiter (illustrated in Peploe, An Intimate Memoir by Cursiter, plate 17, 1947). Cursiter (1887–1976) was an important Scottish painter and polymath, becoming Keeper of the National Gallery of Scotland from 1930. He was a great advocate for the Colourists and Peploe in particular, acquiring several key works for the Nation and writing his book on Peploe in 1947. He lent both works to the Memorial Exhibition at The Scottish Gallery in 1936. The gallery sold A Street in Cassis to an Edinburgh architect in 1977 and it has returned to us by descent, completing a 110-year provenance.
A Street in Cassis is made in brilliant afternoon light, the sharp profile of the shadows across the street providing essential building blocks of tonal composition, the shadow not elusive but definitive. The technique is impressionistic; deft strokes, but not of uniform length, and the colour, based in the reality of the experience (remember Signac), is pushed to the point of expressionism. The tiles and beams of the roof structures are zingy orange, the walls white in the heat and yellow in the shade. The road curves into a hairpin to the left, inviting us to walk down. The view of the hill beyond is hot and mineral and the blue sky unleashes heat, making us hope that the artist has at least set up his easel in the shade.
Born in 1871 in Edinburgh, S. J. Peploe is the senior of the four artists known as The Scottish Colourists. He lived in Paris from 1910 until 1912, where his work changed radically from paintings reminiscent of Manet and Sargent to brilliant Fauvist works which placed him in the vanguard of British Modernism.
“My memories of S. J. Peploe are the memories of our friendship which was wonderful and interesting all the time. Nothing about it was spectacular. It was merely a happy unbroken friendship between two painters who both believed that painting was not just a craft or profession but a sustained attempt at finding a means of expressing reactions to life in the form demanded by each new experience. This is quite different from arriving at a way of doing a thing and continuing to do it in a tradesmanlike manner. By life we meant everything that happened to us; and, as we were curious about life, we painted all sorts of things – men, women, children, landscape, seapieces, flowers, still-life – anything.” Memories of Peploe, J. D. Fergusson, 1945
S. J. Peploe & The Scottish Gallery
In November 1898, the partners of Aitken Dott & Son bought the painting A Gypsy Queen by S.J. Peploe. Two years before, senior partner Peter McOmish Dott had formed The Scottish Gallery to identify the picture dealing part of the firm as distinct from the other businesses – architectural supplies, artist’s materials, framing, gilding and other services – and determined to represent the best of contemporary Scottish painting. The purchase of Peploe’s painting initiated a close relationship between the firm and the artist, then aged twenty-seven. McOmish Dott was a wholehearted admirer of Peploe’s early paintings, and a show was arranged for January 1903, which was a commercial and critical success. Peploe held a second exhibition in 1909, but from then his practice moved towards modernism and Dott struggled to accept the radical expressionist work the artist brought back from Paris after his move in 1910. However, the younger partner of the firm George Proudfoot, and subsequent directors, continued their support for the artist. From the early 1920s The Gallery held a joint contract with Alexander Reid in Glasgow to buy work directly from the artist, an arrangement that allowed Peploe to remove himself from the commercial world and concentrate on his painting, particularly his new subject of Iona and the magnificent rose and tulip paintings of his maturity. Solo exhibitions were held in 1922, 1923, 1924, 1927, 1934, 1936 (Memorial) and The Scottish Gallery has held numerous notable solo exhibitions subsequently including the artist’s 150th anniversary in 2021.
The Scottish Gallery exhibitions: 1903, 1909, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1927, 1934, 1936 (Memorial), 1947, 1985, 1990 (Edinburgh & London), 2012, 2021 (Bicentenary)
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